All Scars Heal With Time
by Doommonger 22
Summary: After Carmen returns to the Dumping Ground from Burnywood, she doesn't think she'll ever fully recover, emotionally or physically. It takes a visit from someone very close to her to convince her that no matter what happens; she can always get back on her feet. This is a one-shot set during episode 2, series 2 of Tracy Beaker Returns. Rated for mature themes.


**Summary:** After Carmen returns to the Dumping Ground from Burnywood, she doesn't think she'll ever fully recover, emotionally or physically. It takes a visit from someone very close to her to convince her that no matter what happens; she can always get back on her feet. This is a one-shot, set during episode 2, series 2 of Tracy Beaker Returns. Rated for mature themes.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything or anyone you recognise from Tracy Beaker Returns or the Story of Tracy Beaker. Danny Westwood, William Howle and Kelly are original characters.

**Author's Note:** Carmen isn't my favourite character, but I think she has a lot of scope from a background point of view and as such I was inspired to write this. I've taken Elm Tree House as being located in the Newcastle/Tyneside area as that's where the show is filmed. Also I had this idea before episode 3 of the Dumping Ground, in which Carmen explicitly states she doesn't have a brother, aired, so please excuse the artistic license. Please read, review and enjoy.

**All Scars Heal With Time…**

Carmen sat on her bed in the Dumping Ground. She was crying now, she'd been tough ever since Burnywood, but she couldn't fight it anymore. Sapphire's advice could only get her so far. She wasn't Sapphire, and she never would be.

Now Carmen had lost everything. Not just her stuff, not just her pride but her friends too. Lily had gone, and Carmen hadn't even had a chance to say goodbye. The last things she'd said to her had been words of scorn, hatred. And she hadn't meant a word of it.

She looked at herself in the mirror and gently touched the bruises round her eye. They weren't the only examples, and she watched as another tear slid down her cheek. She glanced at the picture of her and Lily that she kept on her bedside table. Part of her wanted to scream at it and tear it in half, but the other part of her couldn't bring herself to do it. That was the kind of thing that Sapphire would do, but despite their time together in Burnywood and their growing friendship, Carmen didn't want to be like the older girl.

She was dragged from her thoughts by a knock on the door. She turned, wiping her eyes on her sleeve, as Mike pushed it open.

"Carmen," he said. "There's someone in the office downstairs who'd like to talk to you."

So, thought Carmen, her social worker was here. She'd wondered when she'd be moved, it was only really a matter of time. No one in their right mind would leave a child in Burnywood, and after everything that had happened, no one in their right mind would leave a child in Elm Tree either. She looked around for something to pack, before remembering that she didn't have anything left. The kids at Burnywood had seen to that. There'd been two boys in particular who'd orchestrated her suffering.

The first had been Tyler Lewis. A first-class prankster and thief, it hadn't taken him long to latch on to Carmen as a preferable target. He'd taken what he wanted of her stuff and sold on everything that was of no use to him. He'd raked in a pretty decent profit for his deeds and if it hadn't been her stuff that was giving Tyler his income, Carmen might actually have been impressed. The kid had guts and initiative and he'd been in Burnywood long enough to know how and when to act to get what he wanted.

The second was Danny Westwood and, as far as Carmen knew, he was considered to be the top dog in Burnywood. Danny was 17 and waiting to be moved on. The care workers had thrown out some random dates to keep their bosses happy, but the higher up the ladder they got, the less inclination they found to move him. Danny was trouble in Burnywood. The authorities thought it would be better to simply leave him there, rather than move him and risk causing more trouble somewhere else. Danny ruled the place through fear, and it was practically a routine occurrence for him to beat up the new kids on their first day. He got a kick out of it and none of the staff had the courage or incentive to do anything about it.

Carmen went down to the office, wondering whether she'd be able to generate some lame excuse as to why she should stay. She didn't really want to leave, her friends were in Elm Tree and so were most of her memories. She really didn't want to move and there was no way she was going to stay with her mum and Lee. She knocked on the office door and Gina opened it.

"I guess this is it," said Carmen. Gina frowned.

"What are you talking about Carmen? This is what?" Gina looked confused and Carmen scowled.

"Well I'm leaving, aren't I? My social worker's here." Gina looked at her in puzzlement for a moment, before her face cracked into a beaming smile. Carmen really didn't think it was something that she should be smiling about.

"Carmen, dear. It's not your social worker who's come to see you." Carmen peered round Gina, and saw her visitor was watching the scene with a look of amusement. He grinned when he saw her.

"How you doing, short stuff?" Carmen's mouth dropped open in surprise. It had taken her a few moments to recognise him – it had been a long time since she'd last seen him and his physical appearance had changed significantly. His hair was a floppy mess that looked in dire need of a co-ordinated assault from a hedge trimmer and a comb, and his chin carried what Carmen guessed could optimistically be called 'designer stubble'. But underneath it all, he looked exactly the same as before.

"Will?"

"The one and only." Carmen let out a shriek of delight and dived past Gina to hug Will. She hadn't seen her brother – William Howle – for four years.

X

With Gina's blessing, Will had taken Carmen out for lunch. It wasn't exactly much, but Carmen would rather have had fish and chips in town with Will than stay in the Dumping Ground where the atmosphere stank. As they sat on a bench in Newcastle city centre, Carmen voiced the question that had been nagging her since Will's arrival.

"Where have you been? I haven't seen you in four years!"

It was true. Carmen hadn't seen Will since before she'd gone in to care. When her mum had hooked up with Lee, she'd proved unable to cope with looking after her children and sorting out her love life at the same time. Her impromptu move to Spain with Lee had been the tipping point but things had been going rapidly downhill for a long time before that. It seemed Lee didn't like having to share their mum's attention and wasn't afraid to take a swing at the kids to bring them round to his way of thinking. At only seven, Carmen had been too young to retaliate and had been forced to simply sit it out. Will however was eleven years older than Carmen, and perfectly capable of defending himself. Carmen could remember that Will's relationship with Lee had been even worse than hers – Lee had swung at Will far more often than he'd swung at her, but Will had been more than happy to return the favour, with gusto. The relationship had reached breaking point after only a couple of weeks, and Will had left without warning. Carmen had always held on to a sliver of hope that Will would turn up and rescue her one day – a proverbial knight in shining armour – but after a couple of years she'd given up on that particular dream. That was why she hadn't told any of the other kids at Elm Tree House about him. She felt that even informing them he _existed_ would jeopardise her chances of ever seeing him again.

Will remained silent for a long time, thinking carefully about how to phrase his response.

"I've been abroad a lot with work," he said, eventually. Carmen frowned.

"I didn't think Asda needed you abroad _that_ much." The last time she had seen Will, he'd been holding down a part-time job at the local supermarket. The slightest hint of smile dashed across his face, disappearing just as quickly.

"I don't work for Asda anymore." She cocked her head to one side.

"Really? That's something I suppose – mum always said it was a dead-end job." Will tensed for just a second longer than he should have and Carmen realised that their mum was obviously still a very fractious topic.

"Helen said an awful lot of things," Will hissed eventually, through gritted teeth. "I learnt a long time ago to ignore most of it." The use of their mum's first name wasn't lost on Carmen, and she could only stare at Will in silence. She'd never realised that he felt so strongly about it. Of course, she was mad at her mum for everything that she had put them through, but she'd gotten over it and learned to carry on with her life. She guessed that was one advantage of living in Elm Tree – she had her friends around her to support her and help her to move on. Will hadn't had that and it was only now that Carmen could see there were cracks starting to form. Four years of stewing over events on his own hadn't done Will any favours. "But this isn't getting us anywhere," Will continued eventually. "What have you been up to?"

And so Carmen told him. She told him _everything_. It felt good to get it all off her chest. She hadn't been able to do that since she'd entered the care system. Everyone else there had their own problems to worry about and only had so much time for hers. She told him about her first care home, Colwin House. She hadn't really liked it there, she hadn't bonded particularly with any of the other kids and she'd tended to stay on the outskirts. But Colwin House had been plagued by financial difficulties and in the end it had closed down and fallen in to disrepair. Its residents had been split up and sent to other care homes across the country. A couple of them had been sent to Burnywood – Carmen had heard of that particular care home's reputation through the grapevine. Burnywood was the worst of the worst, and worse than that. Carmen had thought Colwin House had been a dump, but when put into a comparison with Burnywood, her old care home had looked like the Ritz. Carmen had originally been lined up to go to Burnywood, but a last minute administrative change had resulted in her being sent to Elm Tree House instead. And there, finally, Carmen had found the home and family she had been looking for. She'd clicked with the other residents, especially Lily and Tee. She regaled Will with so many of their adventures that she lost count. He just sat there and listened. Carmen told him about the trouble with Lily and her sisters, about the famous Tracy Beaker's dramatic return to the Dumping Ground, about Liam's scams, about Gus' nature as a stickler for detail and about Johnny's explosive temper. She told him about Mike and about Gina. She even told him about Elaine Boyak – Gina's predecessor who had suffered a nervous breakdown and left three days after Carmen had arrived. She hadn't really had a chance to get to know Elaine, but Carmen didn't care. Gina had stepped up to fill the breach more than adequately and that was all that mattered. Carmen talked until her throat was sore, but just kept talking.

Eventually however, she ran out of the things to talk about and was forced on to the one topic she'd been deliberately avoiding. She'd been desperately tip-toeing around the obvious, finding anything and everything else to talk about but she couldn't avoid it any longer. There was no way that he wouldn't have noticed the enormous purple bruise under her left eye – if he hadn't then he must have been really unobservant or blind. So she told him about the trouble that the Dumping Ground had had, about Lily's fall from the roof, about Elm Tree being closed down and about Burnywood. She told him about Tyler and Danny and about Denis Stockle, the care worker who had watched it all happen and done nothing about it. As she spoke, she saw Will clenching and unclenching his fists to control his temper. She was already prepared for when he offered to go to Burnywood and pay Danny a little visit for a 'friendly chat', but she declined the offer. Tempting as it was to set her older brother on Danny as payback, she liked to think she was above petty revenge. Still, she thought, it was always good to know that she had someone who would fight – _properly_ fight not just metaphorically fight – in her corner. Finally she told him about her to return to Elm Tree and her fight with Lily. She was close to tears as she finished.

"Blimey," said Will when she'd finished her tale. "It looks like the last four years have been a pretty raw deal for us both." Carmen wiped her eyes on her sleeve and turned to face him.

"What's happened to you then?" she asked. She hadn't meant it to sound accusatory – she certainly hadn't meant to make it sound like she thought he couldn't possibly have had a worse time than she'd had.

There was a heavy silence.

"You're not the only one who's lost everything, Carmen." He didn't say it to be spiteful, he was just stating fact. Carmen didn't know what had happened to Will, but whatever it was, she got the feeling it had been a lot worse than getting beaten up at Burnywood.

"Tell me," she said. Will stared across the street for a very long time, before he spoke.

"Do you remember Kelly?" Carmen nodded. How could she forget Kelly? Kelly had been Will's girlfriend at the time that their family had been torn apart. Carmen had only met her a few times, but she'd been brilliant. She'd been like the older sister Carmen had never had – she'd taught Carmen how to paint her nails and they'd styled each other's hair. Before Lee had turned up on the scene, when Carmen had been younger and far dreamier, she'd spent hours imaging Will and Kelly's wedding. She briefly wondered if that was what Will was going to tell her.

"Of course I remember Kelly. What happened?" There was a pause.

"After I left, I moved in with her. Things progressed and, eventually," he paused. "I proposed to her." Carmen's heart did a somersault with an attached triple back-flip. That was brilliant news! She'd known it was going to happen, she'd said it all along! She'd be a bridesmaid, obviously. The wedding had to be soon – unless, of course, Kelly had said no. But Carmen knew Kelly, and she knew that Kelly wouldn't say no. Carmen was already picking out her outfit.

"That's fantastic!" she cried. She was about to ask when the wedding was, but she stopped herself when she noticed Will's expression. He was still staring out across the street but he didn't look like he shared her opinion. "Did she say no?" Carmen asked, cautiously. Will shook his head.

"She said yes. But then she was killed two days later," he continued his voice barely more than a whisper, "mown down on a pelican crossing by a drunk driver." Carmen's heart stopped doing acrobatics and thumped down into the base of her chest like someone had attached a brick to it.

"Oh."

"I became pretty disillusioned after that. I needed to do something; I needed to make a difference. I quit my job and," he faltered slightly. "I joined the army." Carmen raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything. "I passed basic training and ended up on a service tour in Afghanistan." Carmen couldn't believe what she was hearing. She could remember her brother carrying her round the living room when she was younger, piggyback style as she pretended to be an aeroplane. She couldn't imagine the same person running around in the desert shooting at people. "Things weren't so bad," continued Will. "I didn't see much action – it was mainly peacekeeping duties. We'd drive round the local villages and dispense care packages and first aid. It was a routine thing, and you can call me crazy, but I liked it. It made me feel like I was actually making a difference." He stopped again, and Carmen saw a new expression cross his face. It was somewhere between anger and sadness. Whatever happened next was obviously the worst part of the story. Suddenly, Carmen didn't want to hear it. She felt guilty, she'd spent all afternoon complaining about how terrible her time in Burnywood had been and how she didn't think she could ever recover from it. But here was her brother – the same brother who'd carried her round while she pretended to be an aeroplane, the same brother who'd bandaged her knee when she'd tripped over the coffee table – and he'd been in Afghanistan fighting a war. Carmen felt sick.

"Please don't," she whispered. She knew he was going to tell her anyway and he had every right to. After all, she'd previously told him she wanted to hear it. But now, faced with the reality of the situation, she couldn't bring herself to face it.

"Everything was great, but we became complacent. One day the Taliban hit our patrol vehicle with an IED." Carmen gave him a confused look. "It's an Improvised Explosive Device – a homemade bomb if you like. We were caught completely unprepared. There were ten of us on the patrol. Two of them were killed in the explosion. Five more were taken out in the ensuing gunfight. Only three of us made it out alive." Carmen was crying and she was fighting so hard not to clamp her hands over her ears. She forced herself to keep listening. She needed to hear this. "One was blinded by the explosion, the second died of his injuries two days later and I," he paused and Carmen saw he was rolling up his trouser leg. She let out a muted shriek. Instead of flesh, there was a mass of metal and plastics. Will was missing a leg. "I lost my right leg. I got a prosthetic one when I got back to the UK. I was lucky I guess. They didn't think I would walk again." Carmen was shaking her head in denial. It wasn't that she had a prejudice against people with artificial limbs and it wasn't that she thought it was 'weird' or 'unnatural'. She just couldn't believe that it had happened to Will, to _her_ brother.

She wiped her eyes, tore her gaze away from his artificial right leg and looked him in the eye again.

"Why did you tell me that?" she whispered. He must have known she'd struggle to handle it. She was only eleven after all.

He looked at her for a long time before he replied, as if assessing her.

"Because you're strong Carmen, you're stronger than Helen and you're stronger than I ever was. You're strong and you're a Howle. And if there's one thing mum's screw up has taught me, it's that being a Howle makes you damn-near indestructible. So no matter what happens, no matter how bad it gets, we never ever give up hope. You understand? You're a survivor, Carmen, and never let anybody tell you differently. No matter how bad it gets, you can always get back on your feet and keep fighting." Carmen managed a weak smile. Will pointed to the bruises on her face. "They _will_ heal, Carmen. All scars do, with time."

Carmen stared at him for a moment, before she threw her arms around him for another hug. He held her close as she sobbed.

"I'm sorry, Carmen," he whispered. "But I can't get you out of Elm Tree. Not yet at any rate. But if you need anything, if you _ever_ need anything, you give me a call. It doesn't matter where I am, doesn't matter how trivial it might be, you call me. And I will always answer." She sniffed.

"What about you? What about your life? What about the army?" He smiled at her.

"Family comes first. I left you alone for four years Carmen, and I hate myself for doing that to you." He hugged her again. "As I said, I can't get you out yet. But I'm going to do everything I can to make sure you never have to be on your own again."

Carmen rested her head against his shoulder and allowed herself a smile. He'd come for her. She'd known he would. It had taken four years and plenty of pain for them both, but he'd come back for her. Her knight in shining armour…


End file.
